82 ChapTer 3 Development Over the Life Span
babies were physically healthy but emotionally de-
spairing, remote, and listless. By becoming attached
to their caregivers, Bowlby said, children gain a se-
cure base from which they can explore the environ-
ment and a haven of safety to return to when they
are afraid. Ideally, infants will find a balance between
feeling securely attached to the caregiver and feeling
free to explore and learn in new environments.Contact Comfort. Attachment begins with
physical touching and cuddling between infant
and parent. Contact comfort, the pleasure of being
touched and held, is crucial not only for newborns
but also for everyone throughout life because it
releases a flood of pleasure-producing and stress-
reducing endorphins (see Chapter 14). In hospital
settings, even the mildest touch by a nurse or phy-
sician on a patient’s arm or forehead is reassuring
psychologically and lowers blood pressure.
Margaret and Harry Harlow first demonstrated
the importance of contact comfort by raising infant
rhesus monkeys with two kinds of artificial moth-
ers (Harlow, 1958; Harlow & Harlow, 1966). One,
which they called the “wire mother,” was a forbid-
ding construction of wires and warming lights, with
a milk bottle connected to it. The other, the “cloth
mother,” was constructed of wire but covered in
foam rubber and cuddly terry cloth (see Figure 3.1).
At the time, many psychologists thought that
babies become attached to their mothers simply
because mothers provide food (Blum, 2002). But
the Harlows’ baby monkeys ran to the terry-cloth
mother when they were frightened or startled, andmost other European countries, babies are ex-
pected to sleep for eight uninterrupted hours by
the age of 4 or 5 months. This milestone is con-
sidered a sign of neurological maturity, although
many babies wail when the parent puts them in
the crib at night and leaves the room. But among
Mayan Indians, rural Italians, African villagers,
Indian Rajput villagers, and urban Japanese, this
nightly clash of wills rarely occurs because the
infant sleeps with the mother for the first few
years of life, waking and nursing about every four
hours. Mothers in these cultures believe it is im-
portant to sleep with the baby so that both will
forge a close bond; in contrast, many urban North
American and German parents believe it is impor-
tant to foster the child’s independence as soon as
possible (Keller et al., 2005; Morelli et al., 1992).attachment Lo 3.4, Lo 3.5
Emotional attachment is a universal capacity of all
primates and is essential for health and survival all
through life. The mother is usually the first and
primary object of attachment for an infant, but
in many cultures (and many other species), babies
become just as attached to their fathers, siblings,
and grandparents (Hrdy, 1999).
Interest in the importance of early attachment
began with the work of British psychiatrist John
Bowlby (1969, 1973), who observed the devastat-
ing effects on babies raised in orphanages without
touches or snuggling, and on other children raised
in conditions of severe deprivation or neglect. Thecontact comfort In
primates, the innate
pleasure derived from
close physical contact; it
is the basis of the infant’s
first attachment.
FiGure 3.1 The Comfort of Contact
Infants need cuddling as much as they need food. In Margaret and Harry Harlow’s studies, infant rhesus monkeys
were reared with a cuddly terry-cloth “mother” (right) and with a bare-wire “mother” that provided milk (left). The
infants would cling to the cuddly mother when they were not being fed. And when an unfamiliar, scary toy was placed
in the enclosure, the infant monkey would run to the terry-cloth mother for comfort.